Coverage of Australia by CNN World Report and US Television Network News

This content analysis contrasts CNN World Report and US television network news stories regarding Australia, using the CNN World Report Index and the Vanderbilt Television News (US networks) Archive and Index, both from 1987 to 1996. Significant differences emerged in the Australia topics chosen for presentation in these different news environments. US network stories typically were breaking news voice-overs of sports, disasters, animals, national politics, and crime. The two had similar percentages of soft news, but CNN World Report had significantly more background reporter packages on health, culture, economics, education, science, the military, and the environment

Found, Featured, then Forgotten: U.S. Network TV News and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War

https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_newfound-ebooks/1000/thumbnail.jp

Religious Groups & “Affluenza”: Further Exploration of the TV-Materialism Link

The researcher explores whether previously noted links between television viewing and materialism also appear among those in religious communities. Secondary analyses were conducted using data from six previous studies: Mennonites, American Buddhists, North American Hispanic Youth in Seventh-Day Adventist Congregations, two studies of youth in various Protestant denominations, and a national youth study with an over-sample of parochial students. Across the six studies heavier TV viewing generally correlated with materialist values, especially the value of making a lot of money for the young. The results validate Georg Simmel’s observation that even those devoutly dedicated to salvation and the soul are influenced by the culture, and mediated culture is saturated with a disempowering and ultimately unsatisfying consumerism

When Mediated Poverty Stereotypes align with Public Opinion: A Clear Predictor of Ideology and Party in the U.S.

Attribution Theory observes that people have a compelling need to explain things, and those explanations break down into things internal to the self or to an outside force. This article notes how neatly that theory parallels work by Lakoff that conservatives and Republicans take a stern father approach to issues, finding individual fault for almost any problem, while Democrats and liberals look to external forces. Mediated portrayals of poverty tend to enforce the former view rather than the latter. Through secondary analyses of many polls, the researcher confirms that political ideology and party align at highly significant levels with how respondents answer the question Why are people poor

Early v. Election-Day Voters: A Media Profile

Abstract The researcher conducted a secondary analysis of three major surveys of voters: the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey, and the 2007 and 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Surveys. All three of these surveys had media components, making it possible to create a profile of significant media differences between Election Day voters and those who vote early. Early voters, contrasted to those on Election Day, are super citizens—the kind of extremely likely voters campaigns seek out and contact. Early voters (at p \u3c .0001 level of significance) were more likely to be contacted by campaigns by both mail and e-mail, and at a p \u3c .05 level of significance were more likely to be contacted by campaigns face-to-face and by phone. Early voters, compared to election-day voters, are more likely to mention News and Documentary among their top-four favorite types of TV programs, and less likely to mention Science Fiction, Comedies, Reality Shows, and Music Videos. The only tested programs significantly favored by Election Day voters over their Early Voting counterparts were: The Simpsons, Scrubs, and Family Guy. A long list of news, documentary, news talk, and news satire programs, however, tend to be favored more by early voters than by those who vote on Election Day. Early voters were more likely than Election Day voters to listen to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered news program, and to listen to news gabbers such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Neal Boortz, Mike Gallagher, Clark Howard, Bill Bennett, and Dr. Laura Schlesinger

Why Poor and Why Rich: International Surveys Validate Attribution Theory

This research seeks to test whether the trends in political message processing noted by George Lakoff are culture-specific to the U. S. or if such processing of political messages is a more universal phenomenon. Specifically the researcher conducts a secondary analysis of four large international polls and one national poll, the Polish General Social Survey. The polls all featured questions about why others are poor or wealthy. All these polls also asked questions about political philosophy, liberal to conservative. If the Lakoff points “travel well,” then political conservatives, true to Attribution Theory, will see both poverty and wealth as a consequence of individual traits. Political liberals would point to social conditions for both wealth and poverty

A Longitudinal Study of U.S. Network TV Newscasts and Strikes: Political Economy on the Picket Line

News media coverage of labor traditionally has been used as a supporting example for Political Economy Theory. It holds that that content production and distribution, and hence the news content itself, is subtly influenced by ownership and control. Certainly one can notice over the past few decades a dramatic decline in the journalistic resources devoted to labor coverage. This has lead some observers to suggest the growing corporate concentration of media ownership correlates with strike coverage that has declined beyond any ratio suggested by the declining power of unions and the reduced number of strikes. This research examined whether U. S. network TV newscasts over time have shown less strike coverage, even adjusting for the lesser number of strikes. They did not, but fluctuated wildly based on when sports and other entertainment strikes occurred. The project also indicated a strike-impact-on-consumers focus with an element of social class that also may be at play. Network TV coverage opted for more time devoted to higher-class effects (airline strikes) as opposed to lower-class effects (intercity bus strikes)